A Beachfront Cineastetag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-5764292013-05-19T10:50:40-07:00Random reviews, thoughts and musings about movies.TypePadStar Trek Into Darknesstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d835023e3f69e2019102417e2f970c2013-05-19T10:50:40-07:002013-05-20T12:29:36-07:00J.J. Abrams' second Star Trek feature delivers on the action, grows some of the characters nicely, and features strong thematic and allegorical subtext. He also settles on telling a story that's been told before, and told better. Jeffrey Siniard 5/18/13....Jeffrey Siniard

J.J. Abrams' second Star Trek feature delivers on the action, grows some of the characters nicely, and features strong thematic and allegorical subtext. He also settles on telling a story that's been told before, and told better.

Jeffrey Siniard 5/18/13.

In all honesty, Abrams, Bryan Burk, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, and Roberto Orci (i.e. the filmmakers) had a nearly impossible task ahead of them. They were building on an incredibly successful prequel, one that that re-ignited Star Trek as a franchise, generated huge box-office success, and received tremendous popular and critical acclaim.

The reason for the success was twofold: they didn't sacrifice either the essential characters, nor the humanistic optimism that informed Star Trek's worldview.

As a result of that success, the filmmakers gave themselves the freedom to re-explore Original Series-Era Star Trek without fear of canon. Personally, I also think Paramount gave them more money for the sequel and the responsibility to grow the franchise. Which to marketing folks, means one thing: Make it safe and make it saleable.

As the universally-decreed "Best Star Trek Movie Ever Made," Khan is both the standard by which good Star Trek is measured, and unfortunately "a pattern to follow" as Kirk says of the Ilia probe in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

And in the case of later Star Trek (generally), and specifically in the case of Star Trek Into Darkness, my response might be the same as Spock's was to Kirk: "Indeed. They may have followed it too precisely."

Still, Star Trek Into Darkness is very good, and in places it's great. It also works as very good, and occasionally great Star Trek. Let's see why below the jump:

Charging Headlong Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness opens with a brilliant teaser. In this case, the crew of the USS Enterprise is trying to save a pre-industrial humanoid race on the planet Nibiru from certain extinction at the hands of a mega-volcanic eruption. Spock (Zachary Quinto) is attempting to detonate a cold fusion device to stop the volcano, and it falls to Kirk (Chris Pine) to rescue Spock without violating the Prime Directive (i.e. don't let the natives see you). Needless to say, Kirk ignores the Prime Directive and rescues Spock anyway, with the natives seeing (awesomely, I might add) the Enterprise rise out of the ocean, then streaking across the sky.

This sequence is so perfectly pitched, it's like the climax of an unfilmed classic Trek episode, and it ends with a terrific match cut that leads to the Enterprise going to warp speed.

More importantly than anything else, it sets up two essential character arcs - Spock's unwillingness to acknowledge his human emotions, and Kirk's unwillingness to place his crew ahead of the chase - and sets up the film's essential question: "Is there anything you would not do for your family?"

When the Enterprise returns to Earth, Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood) informs Kirk he is stripped of his command, and Spock is reassigned to the USS Bradbury.

Meanwhile, in London, a Starfleet officer with an ailing daughter makes a deal with the devil - John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). Harrison will provide a blood transfusion that saves the officer's daughter, in exchange for delivering Harrison's bomb to it's destination - the Kelvin Memorial Archive, and killing 42 people.

As Starfleet's available top officers convene in San Francisco, led by Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller), Harrison attacks again. In this attack, Pike is killed along with Spock's new commanding officer, and Harrison escapes to Kronos - the Klingon Homeworld. Kirk gets Spock and the Enterprise back with a directive from Admiral Marcus - locate Harrison and kill him - preferably using all 72 of the new torpedoes delivered to the Enterprise.

As the story unfolds, the Enterprise's mission, John Harrison, and Admiral Marcus are all revealed to be something other than advertised.

"Is there anything you would not do for your family?"

This is the central question of the film, and it's the question by which all the characters and their actions are contextualized.

In the case of Pine's Kirk, at the beginning he doesn't understand his addiction to the chase is what imperils his crew, and then forces him to make equally bad decisions to save his crew. As the story progresses, Kirk realizes that he's in way over his head, and doesn't have the luxury of the chase without getting people killed. Pine is absolutely wonderful in this movie, and he shows Kirk's progression in shades - early on you agree with Pike that Kirk doesn't respect the chair, but by the end of the picture, Pine shows you Kirk's earned the right to sit in the chair. His apology to the bridge crew of the Enterprise when all appears lost is a great moment for Pine's Kirk.

Authors Note: My wife pointed out an interesting comparison - Kirk must lose Pike to become the man Pike thought he could become. Learning and applying the lessons Pike tried to impart is also the only way Kirk can protect and honor Pike's legacy. It's a similar progression to the one Harry Potter follows; as each of his father surrogates (Sirius Black, Dumbledore, etc.) dies, Harry matures and carries their wisdom forward.

Quinto's Spock has made the difficult decision that many survivors have to make (as Matt Zoller Seitz correctly notes, "he's a Holocaust survivor"), the decision to seal himself off emotionally because the pain (from Vulcan's destruction and his mother's death) is otherwise unbearable. The problem here is that he has unwittingly shut himself off from Kirk and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and embraced logic so completely that he cannot see how he's hurting people, and is not yet earning the trust of his shipmates. As the picture moves, along, Quinto opens Spock up so that he can see how essential his emotions are to experience, and how they are essential to how his shipmates relate to him.

Repeatedly, we also see the minor characters make decisions that reflect this question:

Scotty (Simon Pegg) resigns in protest as Kirk has special torpedoes loaded aboard the Enterprise, but later risks his life as a saboteur about the USS Vengeance, at Kirk's request and even though he's still angry with Kirk.

Chekov (Anton Yelchin) accepts a "promotion" to Chief Engineer, and the dreaded red shirt that goes with it after Scotty leaves.

Uhura begs Kirk to let her speak Kilngonese to a platoon of Klingons, knowing the odds of her survival were very low, and later beams onto a floating barge to assist Spock.

McCoy (Karl Urban), despite vehement protests, assists Carol Marcus (Alice Eve) in opening a special torpedo and later does so again at Spock's urging.

Carol Marcus also attempts to intervene on behalf of the Enterprise's crew to save them from destruction.

Pike goes to bat for Kirk (in an unseen moment) with Admiral Marcus, and keeps him assigned to the Enterprise as First Officer.

All these actions in the picture answer the question from the perspective of compassion.

In opposition, we have 3 direct examples where fear, ambition, and desperation answer the question negatively.

First, the Starfleet officer who makes the devil's bargain with Harrison out of desperation. Yes, his daughter gets the blood transfusion that saves her life, but he must become a suicide bomber and murder others in exchange.

Admiral Marcus is driven by the fear of another genocidal attack, like the one Nero perpetrated on Vulcan. He's so consumed with fear, he willingly abandons Starfleet's primary purpose as "a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada" (in Pike's words) and attempts to militarize Starfleet completely. Starfleet's Section 31 abandons all non-military research, Marcus authorizes the construction of the starship Vengeance (Dreadnought class - a nice allusion) expressly for combat purposes, and as a "Black Op" (as the CIA might call it). Lastly, Marcus authorizes Kirk to launch a long range preemptive strike, fully aware this action will almost certainly start an interstellar war.

Harrison turns out to be Khan Noonien Singh, exiled prince and product of "late 20th Century genetic engineering" (as Chekov might say - more on this below). Khan's only concern is reviving his 72 fellow genetic supermen and women from cryosleep, and relaunching his campaign of conquest. In this, Khan's ambition is what drives him, while the emotional loss of his followers is somewhat more incidental. I think it should be noted that in Cumberbatch's portrayal, Khan becomes much more of a Nietzschian superman, fully embracing his "will to power." This is what makes him the perfect terrorist.

Furthermore, revenge as a driving emotion is subverted repeatedly in Star Trek Into Darkness. Kirk's desire for revenge is subverted by Spock and Scotty's logical and moral objections. Khan's desire for revenge against the Enterprise is subverted by Spock's cleverness. Spock's desire for revenge at the end is subverted by his need to keep Khan alive.

All of which plays nicely into Star Trek Into Darkness' allegorical subtext.

The War on Terror - Star Trek Into Darkness as allegory

One of Star Trek's deficits was the lack of any truly relvant social or political commentary. This is rectified - in spades - in Star Trek Into Darkness, which as you may have guessed from above, is a straight up allegory for the War On Terror. Furthermore, unlike many other recent blockbusters which throw social or political material at the audience without actually having an opinion on it (Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy is a prime example), Star Trek Into Darkness states clearly, and unequivocally, the War On Terror is wrong.

To begin with, Khan is a wonderful character to use in this context.

Khan, the leader of a "sleeper cell" if you wish, is awakened by Starfleet's Section 31 (clearly a substitute for the CIA), and used to help manufacture weapons intended for use in preemptive warfare against any potential enemy. It seems clear that one of Admiral Marcus' ideas was to turn Khan and his followers into a group of super agents. Further, once Marcus loses control of Khan, or decides there's no further use for him, he tries to have him eliminated - using the very same long range torpedoes Khan helped design - and also triggering the preemptive war against the Klingons that Marcus desperately wants.

If you think this sounds like America's recent foreign policy, or any of our recent heads of state, you'd be correct.

Khan on the other hand, is motivated purely by "the will to power." It's also clear that Khan has taken advantage of whatever resources Section 31 gave him, including sticking his followers inside of hollowed out torpedo tubes, to aid him in his quest to "build an empire".

In practice, when the Enterprise fires these weapons at Khan, the torpedoes will not have sufficient fuel to reach their target - they'll likely soft land on Kronos or be picked up in space. From either point, Khan can revive his followers and launch his reign of terror against a Klingon Empire that is busy dealing with the Federation - after all, the Enterprise fired those torpedoes.

If any of this sounds like a certain deceased CIA-trained freedom fighter, who secretly wanted a Muslim Kingdom on Earth, you'd be correct again.

And, as we are today caught in the middle between these extremes, so is the Enterprise and her crew. This is where the commentary is most important. Kirk has requested this mission as revenge for the killing of Pike... yet Spock sees through the raging emotion to the logical and moral conclusion of the mission - an unprovoked war with the Klingons. Scotty sees through enough of the subterfuge to decide that endangering his ship and crew isn't worth the risk of bringing classified weapons on board. And while Kirk ignores them initially, Spock and Scotty - using their anger and disappointment - help push Kirk into making the logical and moral choice.

This is what gives Kirk's speech at the closing of the picture the moral heft it requires. He's been the guy who wants to blindly strike out in revenge for the death of Pike (his father surrogate), but his family aboard the Enterprise, through their friendship and compassion, redirect him to the right place.

What Is Past Isn't Prologue. Or Is It?

By featuring Khan as the villian, the filmmakers are consciously taking on (arguably) the most hallowed story in Star Trek history: Space Seed and it's sequel, The Wrath of Khan.

Ultimately, Star Trek Into Darkness is a new origin story for Khan, and as I've stated above, I think the the concept is smart, as well as socially, politically, and morally relevant.

But I have some serious misgivings about the execution.

My first problem is the reveal of Khan - part of a casual interrogation in the Enterprise brig. I think this is the filmmakers' biggest mistake - by telling instead of showing, the filmmakers rob us of a flashback with the same power that Spock Prime's (Leonard Nimoy) mind-meld had in Star Trek. This isn't the fault of Cumberbatch, who delivers the exposition with nice shadings of rage, contempt, and sadness. But the dialogue is so exposition-heavy it stretches credibility and excludes non-Star Trek fans from completely understanding who Khan and his followers are - most people in the audience don't have the benefit of Space Seed as a reference.

As a result, the reveal comes off like something stuck in to goose the general audience at a slack moment - most Star Trek fans will have already guessed Harrison's true identity - and thus the reveal is anticlimactic. For all the difference it makes at this point in the narrative, Khan's name might as well have remained John Harrison. I've seen the movie three times as of this writing, and it hasn't really worked for me yet.

My second problem is that the emotional climax of the story may not quite work as intended. In an inversion of the greatest moment in Star Trek history, Kirk goes into the warp core and repairs the Enterprise, exposing himself to fatal levels of radiation. Spock is stuck outside, watching him die through a glass door as Scotty and Uhura look on. As the scene ends, Spock cuts loose with the iconic "KHAAAAAAAN!" scream as Kirk dies.

To be fair, this scene works a lot better for me on the repeat viewings, because it's a wonderful character moment within the movie, but initially this scene suffered badly because the sequence and dialogue intentionally evoke the original iteration in The Wrath of Khan, and the first time I watched it, it took me right out of Into Darkness. And that's not fair to Pine or Quinto - because they're great in this movie and deserved to make the moment completely their own.

Thirdly - if you're going to create a new origin story for Khan, why evoke the greatest moment in Star Trek history at the most important point of the film? I think the filmmakers were trying to consciously connect this Kirk and Spock to the Shatner and Nimoy version, and by re-using this scene they felt they could enhance the emotional impact. For me, it invites an unnecessary and unfair comparison for Star Trek Into Darkness.

No Star Trek film has ever had the resources at it's disposal that Star Trek Into Darkness had, and it shows. Put simply, it's a spectacular visual experience. Industrial Light and Magic delivers on the visual effects, which are the best any Star Trek film has ever featured. The space battles, the Enterprise going to warp speed, the spacescapes, the extremely believable future London and San Francisco, and the EVA from Enterprise to Vengenance are all uniformly awesome and beautiful. And I'd also like to compliment cinematographer Dan Mindel and Abrams - they've found a way to settle the camera down a bit and made the lens flares less intrusive than in Star Trek.

Production Designer Scott Chambliss does a nice job with the new locations in this film, especially the planetscape on Nibiru and the architecture of Kronos. He also does a nice job with the starship Vengeance, which (in a wonderful case of form following function) comes across exactly like the game-changing battleship it's designed to be. And whether Chambliss or Abrams is responsible, the decision to move most of the engineering scenes from a Budweiser factory to the Livermore Nuclear Laboratory is inspired - this is a marvelous use of a practical location mirroring its use in the film.

As in Star Trek, Michael Giacchino's score is wonderful - I got goose bumps listening to his opening theme and title fanfare - something I'd believed only possible with Jerry Goldsmith's original march.

As I'm sure you may have guessed, I find the writing to be pretty strong overall, aside from the big questions I mentioned above. The dialogue and character development are wonderful, as well as thematically and allegorically consistent. Nitpicking plot holes is literally not seeing the forest for the trees, however, these errors stuck out to me:

The instantaneous arrival of the Enterprise to and from the Klingon Neutral Zone

Not seeming to understand the difference between resigning and relieving.

No Klingon ships arrive to intercept the Enterprise, when the Enterprise is clearly within visual range of Kronos.

The Enterprise and Vengenance get into a battle and extended standoff within probably 300,000 miles of Earth, yet no one from Starfleet Command or the orbiting Starbase sends a hail or a ship to figure out what's going on.

The Enterpise falls into Earth's gravitational pull, when the Moon is clearly the nearest celestial object.

The Enterprise falls well into the stratosphere without burning up.

I think at least some of the moral objections to Kirk's mission to kill Khan should have come from McCoy, and not Spock.

As a general observation, the secondary cast (especially Chekov) is given short shrift.

As for Kirk's death and resurrection, I dont think it's a cheat. Spock, nor Kirk knew at the time that Khan's blood could save Kirk, and so the moment between them is completely genuine. Khan's blood is established to have regenerative properties early on in the film with the little girl. It's mentioned again by McCoy when he injects the dead tribble in sickbay, before the Vengeance attacks the Enterprise. If anything, it's telegraphed to the audience. Anyone who calls this a cheat isn't paying attention.

Furthermore, the Original Series had many moments where Kirk's death or survival was placed into question for the sake of a cliffhanger or goosing the narrative - Amok Time, The Doomsday Machine, The Deadly Years, and Obsession are but a few examples. Further, objecting to a character's resurrection is kind of like objecting to all of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.

I agree with those who feel that the damage done to San Francisco was horrific, and too quickly dismissed - however, Star Trek featured a genocide of 6 billion Vulcans, and that didn't seem to bother anyone much. Further, many episodes of the Original Series casually mentioned the deaths of billions, without a moment of repose or reflection, as in The Changeling and The Immunity Syndrome.

The problem with the serum McCoy manufactures is that it makes it hard for any Enterprise crewperson to die going forward, without being vaporized, lost in space, dismembered, or wearing a red shirt.

Last, but not least, I'm going to really miss Bruce Greenwood's Christopher Pike. His limited but excellent work in Star Trek and in Star Trek Into Darkness gave a really strong moral and fraternal mooring.

Boldly Going Forward

Star Trek Into Darkness should mark the end of the set-up for the new cast and crew of the USS Enterprise, as she sets out on her 5 year mission. We've finally got a Spock who can acknowledge his emotional bond with his shipmates, particularly Kirk and Uhura. And we've finally got a Kirk who's grown into the chair, and carries the moral authority his rank requires.

As for the filmmakers, they've recaptured Star Trek's singular gift for social and political commentary, addressing problems from our present and showing us the way to move forward from our problems, and doing so with with a strong logical and moral voice. They've also found a nice futuristic look that balances the best of the old with the best of the new.

Going forward, I think it's time for Star Trek to do what it hasn't truly done since Star Trek: The Motion Picture - and what it was at the end of doing on Nibiru.

Explore strange new worlds. Seek out new life forms, and new civilizations. Bodly go where no one has gone before.

War of the Worldstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d835023e3f69e2017eea11ace0970d2013-04-08T19:44:21-07:002013-04-08T19:43:32-07:00Steven Spielberg's biggest missed opportunity, and possibly his worst screwup. Jeffrey Siniard 4/8/13 There shouldn't have been more of a sure thing than Steven Spielberg directing a modern (2005, in this case) adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic story of a...Jeffrey Siniard

There shouldn't have been more of a sure thing than Steven Spielberg directing a modern (2005, in this case) adaptation of H.G. Wells' classic story of a 19th century Martian invasion of England. Yet somehow, (perversely, in fact) this picture may be Spielberg's laziest, most cynical piece of work. Nothing in this picture suggests Spielberg taking any chances, expanding himself as an artist, or even so much as engaging his imagination.

War of the Worlds shows Spielberg as a master technician and manipulator, in the worst possible way.

Just to be clear, I'm no Steven Spielberg hater.

Schindler's List is in the discussion for the greatest film I've ever seen.

I think A.I. Artificial Intelligence is an under-appreciated near masterwork.

Jaws is possibly the best example of a B-monster movie executed so well that it becomes a masterpiece.

In my opinion, Raiders of the Lost Ark, 33 years later, is still the best action film ever made.

Saving Private Ryan is the modern war film by which all other modern war films are judged.

Few films have the pure filmgoing pleasure and generosity of spirit that Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Minority Report, Catch Me If You Can, Munich, War Horse,or Lincoln have.

Few filmmakers have a filmography that can come close to matching this one, in both scope and quality. Unfortunately, War of the Worlds doesn't belong on this list.

Joining the concept of Americans being under a surprise attack by unkown assailants with the imagery of 9/11 is a colossal miscalculation. Any American who spent any time watching the news, studying history, or generally paying any decent kind of attention knew that Al Qaeda's motive for perpetrating the 9/11 attacks was the continued presence of the U.S. Military in Saudi Arabia (along with and among other reasons).

9/11 represents a particular kind of tragedy to America, mostly the tragedy of blowback (i.e. unintended consequences from previous decisions - however questionable or understandable those decisions were at the time they were made).

Wedding the story of an alien invasion to the story of 9/11 works, as long as you're honest enough to explain to the audience that the aliens have a previously stated grievance - legitimate or not - by which the attack is prompted. Otherwise, you end up with a muddled metaphor, which leads to...

The aliens as sleeper cells in the 1st half is dumb, but it also subverts the pro-insurgency themes of the second half.

The whole concept of the alien tripods being hidden underground, waiting millions of years to be crewed by alien pilots arriving via electrical storm is really rather ludicrous, as it begs a series of questions - how on Earth could thousands of these tripods go undiscovered for the whole of human existence? How could the aliens know they wouldn't be destroyed by volcanoes, earthquakes, or other natural events. How could the aliens gamble that one wouldn't be captured, studied, and reverse-engineered by humanity before the invasion began? Why not conquer the Earth before humanity launched the Industrial Revolution (we'll come back to this one later)?

(By the way, for the people who thought that Ridley Scott's Prometheus was hampered by it's unanswered questions and missteps - not one problem in that film is as brazenly stupid as this idea is to this picture.)

Furthermore, by making the aliens the "sleeper cells," Spielberg (along with writers Josh Friedman and David Koepp) is equating them with terrorists and thus contradicting the entire anti-imperialist thrust of the novel. In the novel, the aliens represent the technologically advanced colonial power, and in a fine twist of irony, the home citizens of the British Empire are reduced to the level of conquered savages.

Had Spielberg retained this idea, the 2nd half of the film, where Tom Cruise's Ray Ferrier saves his daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning) by becoming a kind of insurgent, would have retained far more potency and political relevancy - especially with its production and release occurring in the midst of George W. Bush's presidency.

Furthermore (as the late great Roger Ebert pointed out in his review of Raiders of the Lost Ark), Spielberg is adept and experienced at symbolically and/or visually making political points in his films. Which highlights another problem...

War of the Worlds does far too much telling, and not enough showing.

It pains me as a film lover when Spielberg resorts to clumsy exposition, mostly because he's such a gifted and clever showman. Just consider these examples from Spielberg's previous thrillers:

The dock reversing course and heading for Charlie early in Jaws.

The ripples in the water in Jurassic Park.

The spinning gun changing the mind of the hotel clerk in Minority Report.

Politically and socially speaking, we've also seen Spielberg make strong visual points without replying on exposition:

A political conspiracy resulting in the gassing of innocents in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Blood spattering the swastika in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The murder of the elderly one-armed man in Schindler's List, whose blood melts the snow - a metaphor for both melting the distance of history and a black mark on the pure"white" snow.

The direct targeting advertisements in Minority Report.

Yet, in War of the Worlds, a reporter tells Ray Ferrier about the shields used by the alien tripods, instead of showing us a videotape of the National Guard unit the reporter was nested with (even worse, videotape is used to show us the moronic "sleeper cells" idea mentioned above).

Spielberg could also have opted for any of these other options which would have conveyed the information better and also used them to heighten tension and/or make social/political points:

A cop firing his gun during the opening attack?

Gang members firing their guns?

NRA members opening up their basement arsenals?

The military battle where Robbie Ferrier, Ray's teenage son (Justin Chatwin) runs off?

Roland Emmerich's Independence Day used the "shields" plot device very well and much better, by the way. It's also a better film because it knows exactly what it is (a sci-fi/disaster B movie on an A budget) and doesn't really try to score ham-fisted political points (besides the obvious United We Stand, Divided We Fall).

But the worst example of telling and not showing, is the case of Robbie himself. It's Spielberg's gravest mistake, and also his biggest missed opportunity...

The missing subplot: The Survival of Robbie Ferrier

When Robbie charges over the hill to join the Army, we don't see him again until he shows up in Boston, miraculously alive. Miraculous, because the last thing we saw after he disappeared over the hill were the flaming wrecks of Army vehicles, followed by a wall of flame and an alien tripod.

I can accept Robbie might have survived, but it's a hell of a story and one that Spielberg doesn't show us - instead, we get the overextended sequence in Ogilvy's (Tim Robbins) basement.

Consider the following:

If Robbie is an example of the self-reliance and unrecognized maturity that develops in the children of divorced parents, it would have been an incredibly ballsy political/social statement by showing how he survived, and other children from non-divorced families died or struggled.

His almost "man-to-man" moment with Ray at the end would have been more justified by allowing us to see what Robbie saw on his own, what he learned on his own, and how he may have grown on his own. It would have been great to contrast Robbie experience against what his father experienced.

Robbie's anger never makes much sense in the movie - spending more time with him could have fleshed this out. According to an interview, Koepp said that he was invoking the foolhardiness of teenagers in Gaza fighting the Israeli army - but there's a huge difference. Teenagers in Gaza have their own personal resentments, plus a long and bitter history fueling their anger.

It would have been an interesting extension/comparison of the character Michael (Elliot's older brother from E.T.), and fully in line with Spielberg's career chronicling of the broken middle-class home.

But more than anything else, Robbie's unjustified survival subverts and cheapens the movie irredeemably because...

Spielberg invokes the tragedy and horror of 9/11, for no real purpose, and then contrives a happy ending.

This point is pretty simple for me... If you are going to consciously use the imagery of 9/11, such as:

The raining of debris (paper, clothing).

Ash and dust covered survivors.

Massive crowds fleeing in shock across a bridge.

Makeshift bulletin boards for the missing.

Crashed airliners.

You cannot consciously use them in service of a story that pays no respect to those families who had fathers, mothers, husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, etc. that did not miraculously show up at home after the disaster. While it's true that some did miraculously survive - as documented in Oliver Stone's World Trade Center, albeit greviously injured - some 3,000 did not. I find it irresponsible to use that imagery and then give audiences the happy ending that THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN FAMILIES did not get. It feels like salt in their unending wound.

Invoking that imagery means also having to accept that hundreds of firefighters, paramedics, and cops had to make the same decision that Ray made - who I can save versus who I can't - and have to live with the consequences of that decision for the rest of their lives.

Lastly, socially and politically speaking, America certainly hasn't healed from 9/11 itself, nor the litany of foreign policy, economic, civil liberty, etc. mistakes that have been made since 9/11. To try and put a happy face on that festering wound - in 2005, no less - before America has even remotely come to terms with what 9/11 means and has meant is hopelessly immature.

Thus, it seems Spielberg is exploiting 9/11 for effect! As amazing and mean spirited as that sounds... I don't honestly believe that was Spielberg's intention. It's a terrible mistake of reacting, and not thinking something through (sound familiar, America?).

Note: Maybe I'm wrong here, and future generations will see War of the Worlds as a great artistst's comment on his country and this era. War of the Worlds is an accurate reflection of its country and era during its making, in that it's just as botched and miscalculated as America was in 2005.

Speaking of mean spirited...

Spielberg... Mean Spirited? WTF?

No, really. I can't think of a LESS mean spirited filmmaker than Steven Spielberg. It's one of his greatest assets as an artist. But War of the Worlds is full of moments or sequences that seem to be in the film just for their exploitative effect...

The close-up on the woman's face as she's vaporized by the heat ray.

The black camera crew looting from the downed airplane, then getting chewed out by the white female reporter for no real reason.

The repeated moments where Spielberg has Ray trying to shield Rachel's eyes, only for Spielberg to make her to see and hear the most terrible events in the film (i.e. the bodies floating downriver, trapped in the minivan alone with a descending horde, the overturned ferry, her father's murder of Ogilvy, the "making" of red weed, the gunk spewing from the fallen tripod).

The guy slicing his fingers open trying to crawl through the shattered windshield of said minivan.

The guy who takes the van from Ray at gunpoint gets murdered for no reason by another man who just picks up Ray's forgotten gun.

Repeatedly showing the faces of people drowning in their cars after the ferry is overturned.

None of these scenes shows any of the leavening wit or tact shown in films like Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark - both of which are comparably violent (and more bloody).

There's also none of the moral outrage or moral confusion that punctuates the horrific violence seen in Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, or Munich.

Again, Spielberg is a filmmaker I'd have never thought capable of this kind of cruelty to his audience.

General Issues and Questions

Remember the "Why not conquer the Earth before humanity launched the Industrial Revolution?" question above? Here's the point. If the aliens need humans to create their "red weed," then why vaporize millions of humans with the heat ray?And if they didn't need that many humans for the red weed, then why wait to invade until there are 7 billion humans on Earth?

What's the point of the bodies floating down river scene? It it supposed to prepare us for the overturned ferry sequence? Do the aliens prefer to fish humans from the water?

If Spielberg had wished to make a point about panicked humans being dangerous, an empty countryside is the best choice of locale? This type of country would usually be empty of people in most cases anyway?

Just how far does the electromagnetic pulse radiate out from the alien tripods at the outset of their attack? It seems wide-ranging in the freeway scene, but very localized in other towns and cities.

This is not a specific argument for Spielberg, but for Hollywood in general. If the content of the film is going to be rated R, then make it rated R. Quit forcing filmmakers to hide or remove the gruesome stuff to get more people in a theater who shouldn't be watching the film anyway. I'm thinking of the scene where a guy is killed by an alien tripod and his innards harvested, all filmed in long shot with his body barely hidden by a car.

In Closing

I hadn't watched War of the Worlds in years before last night. I'd tried to talk myself into watching it several times before last night... mostly because there are moments in the film I think are incredible or technically awesome, such as:

The nightmarish honking sound made by the alien tripods before they attack.

The design of the alien tripods, especially the sphincter like device they use to harvest humans.

The flaming runaway train.

The continuous take in the minivan while evading stalled traffic.

The landscape covered in red weed.

Also, Steven Spielberg remains one of the few filmmakers in Hollywood who can stage incredible, intense action while keeping the geography of a scene clear and without resorting to quick cutting or jerking the camera around.

I think I also wanted to revisit the film, to see if time had changed my opinion, or if it offered something new I hadn't noticed since seeing it in the theaters. Steven Spielberg's films are almost always worth a second chance.

It gives me no pleasure to say War of the Worlds is one of the few that doesn't.

Prometheustag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d835023e3f69e2017615b5f1d8970c2012-06-22T19:49:30-07:002012-06-22T22:13:10-07:00Prometheus is no mere summer blockbuster. In fact, we’re getting something rare here: a talented filmmaker calling his shot, and swinging for the fences. This is Ridley Scott’s attempt at an epic science fiction masterpiece to rival, if not surpass, the achievement of both Alien and Blade Runner.Jeffrey Siniard

Prometheus is no mere summer blockbuster. In fact, we’re getting something rare here: a talented filmmaker calling his shot, and swinging for the fences. Prometheus is Ridley Scott’s attempt at an epic science fiction masterpiece to rival, if not surpass, the achievement of both Alien and Blade Runner.

Contrary to the opinions of some, Prometheus is not a bad film; it’s too well imagined to be considered an outright failure. Prometheus is the best looking film Ridley Scott has made since at least Kingdom of Heaven, and a moving symbolic work about man’s need to sacrifice for the greater good.

Unfortunately, Scott, writers Damon Lindelof and Jon Spaihts don’t keep the narrative quite clean enough for Prometheus to reach the masterpiece status it clearly aspires to. That said, it’s still better than any science fiction film in recent memory, especially in terms of scope and purpose.

Prometheus’ lineage bypasses most of the last 30 years of science-fiction cinema adherence to the Star Wars formula. In terms of recent film history, Prometheus is most similar in concept and execution to other richly imagined (and underrated) works like Brian De Palma’s Mission to Mars, and Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

Going further back, the other 2 films that Prometheus calls to mind are Robert Wise’s (also underrated) Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and of course Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Of those films, only Kubrick’s effort has reached the level of masterpiece, and only after many years of reexamination. The reputations of the others are all over the place, from misunderstood masterwork to unequivocal disaster.

Of course, they all share one other essential trait – they’re all symbolic films. This means they are better understood and appreciated on a symbolic level as opposed to a narrative level.

Narrative versus Symbolic.

There are narrative filmmakers, and there are symbolic filmmakers. A narrative filmmaker uses visuals to underline or enhance the narrative, such as the great Steven Spielberg. On the other side of the equation is the late Stanley Kubrick, the master symbolic filmmaker. Narrative to a filmmaker like Kubrick is almost incidental – like the skin of the picture – whereas narrative is the spine of a film for a filmmaker like Spielberg.

Until Prometheus, Scott had always been a narrative filmmaker. What separated Scott from other narrative filmmakers was his visual aesthetic, which involved visual layering as means of enhancing the narrative. This is why Scott’s films get better in proportion to the visual layering required. Alien and Blade Runner are obviously the best examples, but Gladiator and Black Hawk Down also fit this description.

I hope you can all see the ambition implied here. Prometheus is Ridley Scott’s attempt to evolve beyond narrative filmmaking, disguised as a summer blockbuster that appeals to a mass audience.

Prometheus as a Symbolic Film – “The trick, William Potter, is not minding it hurts.”

In the case of Prometheus, Scott, Lindelof, and Spaihts did a magnificent job of creating a symbolic narrative that illustrates man’s need to sacrifice for the greater good.

Let’s start with the Prometheus myth itself. In summary, Prometheus was a titan who first helped the Gods, created man from clay, then was punished by the Gods for giving man the gift of fire. His gift was intended to put man on equal footing with the Gods. His punishment was eternal torture, in the form of being chained to a mountain while an eagle tore into his body and ate his liver every day.:

Prometheus opens with an albino, humanoid (almost like a living sculpture) standing at the top of a waterfall. He drinks a viscous black fluid, and his body suddenly begins to dissolve – the first notable break appears in his body - breaking down to the genetic level. He dissolves into the waterfall; his genetic material enters the water supply. The obvious implication is that this superior being has sacrificed himself in service of creating or advancing life.

This clearly has some Judeo/Christian parallels as well, not the least of which is Christ’s death on the cross, usually depicted with a crown of thorns and - here it is again - a wound in his body.

We see additional acts of sacrifice in the film, not all of them selfless…

David (Michael Fassbender) infects Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) by placing the biomaterial in his drink.

Geologist Fifield (Sean Harris) and Biologist Milburn (Rafe Spall) are left inside the pyramid while everyone’s safely waits out the storm.

Captain Janek (Idris Elba) and his two co-pilots crash the Prometheus into the side of the “behemoth,” destroying themselves and preventing the Engineer’s cargo from reaching Earth.

Thus, according to the film, sacrificing your life in the name of creating or preserving life is a godly act, while sacrificing other life in the name of preserving your own life is the basest act. It’s succinctly put in context by David, repeating a line from David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia:

“The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.”

It all depends on who’s doing the hurting; you or someone else.

It boils down to spirituality, not in concrete religious terms, but rather in generic terms. Specifically, the belief in ideas and things that cannot be quantified (heavenly things), as opposed to the belief in material goods and empirical evidence (earthly things).

In support of the symbols given above, here are additional Promethean and Judeo/Christian References:

With these themes/symbolic ideas in mind, let’s look at a partial list of narrative flaws identified by various moviegoers, columnists, and bloggers…

Why are these “scientists” doing such dumb things, like removing their helmets on an alien planet, opening doors and activating equipment before knowing the result, getting themselves lost, being pouty, or trying to make nice with Alien snakes?

These are people who are spiritually “barren.”

Charlie Holloway (a name for a spiritually hollow man) believes in the evidence he can see, and denies the danger because he can’t see it.

David is an android, created by a spiritually hollow man (Weyland).

Vickers, who wants nothing more than to return to her “Earthly” possessions and inheritance.

Fifield and Milburn, who are interested in money, are the ones who get “lost.”

How exactly does the black biomaterial work?

Consider its effects on people who directly come into contact with it.

The engineer uses it to sacrifice himself, thus is quickly and cleanly destroyed.

Holloway is contaminated and begins mutating.

Fifield mutates.

The worms mutate and evolve into snakes.

It has no effect on David at all.

The creature that is “born” of the contaminated Holloway and the barren Shaw.

Furthermore, I think the biomaterial is better thought of as a genetic accelerant. The only living thing we see it destroy outright is an engineer.

Assuming the material in the ampule room is the same stuff the Engineer drank in the beginning of the film, I think the biomaterial works in relation to the spirituality of the person who uses it. Holloway and Fifield are different brands of “Earthly,” one believes only in the things he can observe, while the other is interested in money. Their contamination is painful, and twists their bodies into monstrosities.

Of course, we’ve got a whole new round of questions if the material inside the ampule room is not the same as what the Engineer drinks at the beginning.

Why would David poison Charlie with the biomaterial?

David is immoral, as a machine, he is programmed to do what Weyland instructs him to do, and has no ingrained sense of morality. Also, I wonder if David thinks he’s helping Charlie “do anything” to reach his goal?

Also, I think of David as kind of toddler. It's pretty clear in the film that David has very little concern or empathy for others, and is acting soley on behalf of his needs, except when following Weyland's orders. But it's not clear that he's malicious. Like a toddler, David is impulsive and curious, with little to no restraint. I think he genuinely was curious to see what would happen, the same way a toddler is curious about what will happen when he/she intentionally hits siblings.

Why doesn’t anyone aboard the Prometheus realize that there’s 1 person in hypersleep who doesn’t get up with everyone else?

I’m not sure here. There must be a hidden hypersleep capsule somewhere. Vickers' query to David – did anyone perish on the trip out - takes on a new relevance in light of Weyland’s age and condition.

Why doesn’t anyone try and figure out what happened to Fifield when Milburn’s body is found, especially using the suit trackers as a guide?

David is busy at that time tending to Weyland, who is coming out of hypersleep. It’s possible that the other two people that Shaw fought off are either attending to Weyland or Fifield.

How can Shaw do the things she’s doing following a Caesarian Section?

Based on our current medical knowledge, she can’t. It’s possible she injects herself with tons of painkiller, or the doctor aboard the Prometheus has more advanced tools to help Shaw recover faster. One theory I think has some merit is that by coming into contact with the biomaterial (via insemination from Holloway), Shaw’s body heals much faster than a regular human.

How does that “3-month-old” newborn survive such an early termination?

It’s pretty evident that Shaw is subdued for an extended period of time following David’s diagnosis. It’s reasonable to think that the fetus develops enough during that time to survive an early removal.

If the engineers created humans, why do they want to destroy humanity?

I’m not convinced the Engineers wanted to destroy humanity. Two of the pictograms shown in the briefing are dated significantly less than 2,000 years ago (somewhere around 600-700 C.E.), which means there’s a fair possibility Engineers visited Earth between the event on LV-223 and when the Prometheus arrives. It also means that Engineers may have come from another location than LV-223.

No clear answer here.

How does Captain Janek come to the conclusion that LV-223 is a weapons/research facility?

Based on the evidence on hand, it’s a logical conclusion. The biomaterial seems to work like a biological weapon. We see at least one of the “behemoths,” is loaded with the material. There don’t seem to be any other Engineer structures in view. This also hints at Janek having a military / intelligence background, prior to working for Weyland Corporation.

However, given what we know about the Engineers, a race willing to sacrifice in order to create and protect life, this seems unlikely.

No clear answer here.

If Captain Janek is correct, why would the Engineers give humans an invitation to a weapons/research facility?

One of the following is true. 1) The pictograms were not an “invitation,” 2) LV-223 is not purely a weapons / research facility, or 3) the Engineers are deliberately inviting humans to their destruction. If the pictograms are a warning, there’s a nice thematic rhyme with Alien – in both cases, the Engineers sacrifice to create or protect life. Let’s also speculate that LV-223 is more of a colony than a weapons / research facility. If this is the case, it’s possible that the pictograms are how the Engineers of LV-223 mark Earth as “theirs.”

One other interesting thought, based on the “behemoth” that is found on LV-426 in Alien. It is located by an acoustic beacon, operating at intervals of twelve seconds. Evidently, none of the Engineers had time to send a similar signal from LV-223.

No clear answer here.

Why would Weyland (or Vickers) hire such an uncommitted group of “scientists” for this mission?

Clearly, he wasn’t interested in the science. A dying, decrepit, almost mummified old man, he’s interested only in what will keep him alive. The proof is his willingness to gamble trillions of dollars on a hunch from two archaeologists.

In fact, Vickers is the one who demonstrates sheer incompetence in hiring these people. She’s so concerned with being on Earth, and getting her inheritance, she can’t see that these people are, by and large, just as greedy and self-interested as she is.

Perhaps this sheer incompetence is what Weyland is referring to when he refers to David as his son – a remark that visibly angers Vickers. Further, it’s evident that the relationship between them is icy at best.

Even if Weyland didn’t get what he came for, there might be other raw materials, archaeological discoveries, and/or life forms worth studying and collecting for analysis on Earth?

As stated above, this is not something Weyland would have screwed up, were he capable of running the company himself.

Vickers can’t run to her left or right to avoid the crashing spaceship?

I don’t have a good answer here, other than Vickers’ desperation to save herself ends up killing her – she panics and doesn’t pay attention.

Then again, Shaw does almost the same thing, and is saved as a matter of luck. If this is the case, it’s not the first time Shaw’s faith is mocked (or affirmed, depending on your point of view).

Summing Up.

As shown above, Prometheus does have some narrative issues. However, most of the narrative issues in Prometheus are perfectly explainable, and are both symbolically and narratively consistent.

Some of these narrative issues are intentionally unexplained, as the answers would presumably be coming with prequels. Further, they allow the viewer to engage in debate and conversation that goes beyond the usual concepts of "awesome" or "sucked." I've had more fun arguing this movie with friends, listening to podcast after podcast, and reading review after review, than with any movie I can remember. As much fun as The Avengers was (make no mistake - Joss Whedon's superhero film is terrific), the truth is I haven't spent one-hundredth the time thinking about it the way I've thought about Prometheus.

There's no such thing as a perfect film. But if I have to choose between:

A) an exceptional and fun summer blockbuster with little to no thematic or symbolic depth.

-or-

B) the spectacle of a talented filmmaker reinventing himself, even as he extends the themes of his previous genre work, swinging for the fences and trying to give audiences a modern masterpiece.

I'll choose B every single time. Prometheus is a terrific, and flawed film. It may not be a masterpiece today. But it's the 1st science fiction film in eons that has a chance to get there over time. And I suspect that it will.

Author's Notes:

This post is indebted to multiple other writers/bloggers, who helped the author to crystallize his thoughts on the film. Links to these sites are provided below.

The screenshots in this post were taken from www.prometheus-movie.com, and are the copyrighted material of 20th Century Fox. The author does not charge to view this blog. The images used are soley for the purpose of illustrating and/or reinforcing the written material in this blog post.

Imperfection and the Divine: Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Tron: Legacytag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d835023e3f69e2014e60838f30970c2011-04-12T19:37:15-07:002011-04-12T19:39:56-07:00The oldest and greatest human drama, the quest for divinity and perfection, as seen in two science fiction films, separated by almost 31 years. By Jeffrey Siniard on 4/12/11. I wasn't fortunate enough to see either Star Trek: The Motion...Jeffrey Siniard

The oldest and greatest human drama, the quest for divinity and perfection, as seen in two science fiction films, separated by almost 31 years.

By Jeffrey Siniard on 4/12/11.

I wasn't fortunate enough to see either Star Trek: The Motion Picture, or Tron: Legacy in movie theaters. I was 2 when the former was released in theaters, and a 33 year old parent of 2 when the latter was released. However, thanks to the wonders of home video, the former is probably the movie I've seen more times than any other in my life (well over 100 times - Alien would be the only other plausible contender), the latter I've watched twice since I picked up the Blu-Ray on Friday.

This isn't a review, rather a collection of thoughts on the similarities between the 2 films, in terms of theme and symbolism. Additionally, their strengths - visually spectacular, symbolically designed, contemplative (not the same thing as boring), featuring terrific music - are the same. Likewise, both films have been criticized for wooden acting, uneven pacing, anemic plotting, and something I'll call "outsized ambition" (i.e. the filmmakers have attempted to elevate the source material to undeserved heights).

Needless to say, I find that both of these films have been, almost criminally, undervalued by the critical community, and not fully appreciated by many of their devoted fans. Neither film is perfect, but both are interesting for almost identical reasons.

Both films illustrate a principal fear of man, as it relates to his technology. The fear is that a machine created by man will somehow turn against him, due to the machine's inability to perceive anything beyond it's given instructions (i.e. beyond it's programming). Simply stated: a machine has no soul, and therefore is incapable of becoming more than the sum of it's parts.

In the case of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the alien cloud V'ger is explained, by Spock in this manner: "V'ger has knowledge that spans this universe, but, in spite of all it's pure logic, V'ger is barren, cold..." What the crew of the Enterprise have yet to discover is that V'ger is actually a massive spacecraft built around NASA's Voyager 6 space probe, a machine with one primary purpose: "Learn all that is learnable, return that information to its Creator," as stated by Decker late in the film. Voyager 6, with the power to reduce anything to data patterns, has assimilated, for lack of a better term, uncountable worlds and aliens on it's journey back to Earth, including 3 Klingon starships, the Epsilon 9 station, and Lieutenant Ilia. V'ger also regards biological life as not true life forms - imperfect.

Voyager 6: "Learn all that is learnable."

In Tron: Legacy, this is role filled by Clu (Codefied Likeness Utility), the program created by Kevin Flynn to help create the"perfect" system. As with V'ger, Clu takes its programming literally, purging any programs in the Grid that do not meet its understanding of perfection. We see (via flashback) as Clu destroys an uncounted number of ISOs (Isomorphic Algorithms), programs that spontaneously grew out of the Grid that have a unique coding sequence and thus the potential to change human history. This "purge" (euphemism for genocide) leads Flynn to withdraw into isolation inside the Grid, to protect the last remaining ISO , Quorra, from destruction.

Flynn creates Clu: "You will create the perfect system."

Both machines have reached the limit of their respective universes. As Spock says "V'ger must evolve. Its knowledge has reached the limits of this universe, and it must evolve." To McCoy, he says specifically "What it requires of its god... is the answer to its question: Is there nothing more?" Similarly, Clu - standing in front of the portal leading out of the Grid and into our world - tells his creator, "I did everything you asked. I created the perfect system."

In both cases, the destruction wrought by both machines, as well as their supposition that they have fulfilled their destiny and must go to another "level of existence," is not the fault of their creators, nor the machines themselves. It stems, however, from the inability of man to inject "soul" into his machines. I would argue that it is drama played one step removed from human spirituality, the idea being a reflection of God's inability to project his divine wisdom into his human creation. As Kirk explicitly states (and is equally true of both machines), "What V'ger needs in order to evolve is a human quality; our capacity to leap beyond logic." It is the quality that would allow both machines to evolve in their own universes, just as we do on Earth.

Interestingly enough, whether by accident or design, both films feature an interesting symbolical manifestation of this theme...

The Number of Man is 6, or one less than the divine.

I have read several study Bibles, most offering similar interpretations about the meaning of the number 6 and the number 7. Everyone knows that the "Mark of the Beast" is 666, that inverse, and unholy trinity. As 666 represents man's flaws, magnified to pure evil, a single 6 represents man and his work as just short of perfection, a secular limit preventing man from reaching the divine on Earth.

In both Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Tron: Legacy, the number six is the primary symbolic manifestation of the imperfection of both V'ger and the Grid. Notice how V'ger has 6 fins on its exterior, and how both V'ger's external aperture and internal orifice have six petals. This symbolizes the "perfect machine's" basic imperfection, as a work of man, it reveals (literally through the opening of the apertures) itself as both a work of man and imperfect.

External view of V'ger entering Earth Orbit

The hexagonal inner aperture of V'ger

The first time Sam Flynn arrives inside the Grid, and is captured, you see the ground beneath him divided into hexagonal shapes. Later in the film, Rinzler (Tron's corrupt name) uses his "powers" to access the Grid directly, from hexagonal interfaces in the floor. Symbolically, this shows the audience that Kevin's Flynn's vision of a "perfect" system is fool's gold; the Grid, down to its literal foundations, is imperfect.

Hexagonal Floor of the Disc War Arena

You see the theme of 6 repeated elsewhere in both films; in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the floating walkway leading to the V'ger complex is comprised of hexagonal blocks, and interestingly enough, in the crew itself - note that the Enterprise continues to malfunction until Spock, the last of the original 7 bridge crew arrives.

Hexagonal blocks leading to the Enterprise

In Tron: Legacy, you see it in the hexagonal patterns on the solar sailer, on the paper Quorra gives Sam to help him find Zuse, as well as the hexagonal patterns on the "clothes" worn by programs inside the Grid.

Hexagonal patterns on the Solar Sailer

In both films, the turning point occurs once the human creators realize that their creations are imperfect. Spock realizes that V'ger is imperfect, telling Kirk "As I was when I came aboard, V'ger is now, incomplete and searching. Logic and knowledge are not enough" just as Kevin tells Sam that "I screwed it up, chasing after perfection." What both characters are admitting is that the solution to their problems, both in the films' plots and themselves, lies not with achieving perfection. The solution is in accepting their human frailties and bringing them into the equation.

Thus, in both films, resolution is not achieved until a human element is added to the machine, the 1 ingredient plus the imperfect 6, making the divine number 7.

Journey to the Divine... the melding of man and machine... and the guiding light in the sky.

In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the resolution comes once Decker makes the decision to join with V'ger. The resulting merging is shown as a bath of white light that is transmitted throughout V'ger, resulting in an explosion of pure energy and the birth of a new life form.

Decker, the Ilia Probe, and V'Ger join

Tron: Legacy's resolution comes once Kevin Flynn embraces Clu, reintegrating Clu into himself and causing another explosion of pure energy, which destroys the program army Clu intended to take into the real world, and recasts the Grid as a serenely beautiful place.

Kevin Flynn faces his imperfect creation

Neither depiction is accidental. This is man taking command of his inner divinity and assuming responsibility for his imperfect creation. It is a reflection of how all of us wish to meet our creator, be embraced, have our sins forgiven, and go to Heaven. The blinding light is a reflection on the spiritual progression from our human existence - many near-death experiences describe themselves heading towards a bright light. It also fits nicely with the description given of God in the Bible - Moses is only able to see God as he passes - as the awe is more than Moses could physically bear. It is important to note, that neither V'ger, nor Clu or the Grid attain perfection in the joining, merely that they achieve a sense of completion, of balance.

Another similarity between the two films is the place where this transformation takes place - a kind of floating mountain of light. V'ger's central complex floats in a sea of blackness, surrounded by random particles of energy and bursts of lightning.

Enterprise facing the V'ger central complex

The portal inside the Grid, is shown early on as a kind of morning star, hovering over a digital sea, surrounded by floating landforms and, yes, bursts of lightning.

The Portal

It's also worth noting that both films feature a journey to the "floating mountain of light" while passing over beautiful, however uniformly dark and barren terrain- both the Grid and V'ger meet this description.

Other Biblical Parallels.

In Tron: Legacy, we first see the ISOs as a wandering tribe, seeking their creator from somewhere off the Grid - the echo of the tribe of Israel wandering through the desert is unmistakable. Also, furthering this parallel, we see the ISOs' arms, with a kind of digital coding. This is an echo of the experience of Jews in Europe during World War 2, when their arms were tattooed by the Nazis, then purged by Hitler during the Holocaust in a futile quest for Aryan perfection - just as Clu purges the ISOs in his misguided attempt to build the perfect system.

The mark of the ISOs

We also have Tron himself, who has been corrupted by Clu and transformed into the henchman Rinzler. Late in the film, he sees Flynn and remembers his mission, to "fight for the users." He sacrifices himself to save Kevin, Sam and Quorra, and falls into the digital sea. Once under water, he is re-baptized as Tron - washed of his sins as Rinzler, his suit colors change from Clu's reddish orange back to his original neon blue. Furthermore, the Holy Trinity is reflected in 2 groupings; at the beginning of the Grid, there were Kevin Flynn (Father), Clu (Son), and Tron (Holy Spirit). Later, we have Kevin, Sam, and Quorra filling the same roles, respectively.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture, for its part, is replete with discussion about the divine. In addition to Spock's line above, Decker makes the observation that "We all create God in our own image," in reference to V'ger's assumption that its creator is a machine. Near the merging of Decker and V'ger, McCoy says "Capture God... V'ger's liable to be in for one hell of a disappointment," as a comment on V'ger's decision to force the creator to finish transmitting code in person. And no discussion of Star Trek and the divine would be complete without mentioning the "holy trinity" of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, a hive mind that embodies the logic (Spock), drive (Kirk), and conscience (McCoy) that serve as the crux of the entire franchise, and as a (very loose) reflection of the Holy Trinity.

In closing...

Ultimately, both films close on the technologically progressive view that man and machine serve each other best when taken as equals. In most science fiction, man is viewed as a master of technology who then becomes enslaved by it.

In contrast, Star Trek: The Motion Picture ends with a discussion about the new lifeform that is the merged Decker and V'ger, followed by the Enterprise warping off on her shakedown cruise. Similarly, Tron: Legacy focuses on Quorra's first experiences in our world, riding on a motorcycle and enjoying the warmth of her first sunrise.

Both films present a journey that has blurred the lines between man and machine, where that progression will take us, and what it means for our future.

Avatartag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d835023e3f69e20133f2d89e03970b2010-08-04T21:46:08-07:002010-08-04T21:22:56-07:00The brings us to the true idea that Cameron is expressing with Avatar - a word that that originates from Hinduism, meaning the decent of a god to earth in a manifest shape (the Buddha is an avatar of Vishnu, for example) - the visible manifestation of an idea or abstract concept. Jeffrey Siniard

James Cameron's magnum opus is about embodying an ideal, for good and evil.

Is it possible that Avatar is both overrated and underrated? I think so. Obviously, James Cameron's picture has been exhaustively reported for the following reasons: the fact that it is far and away the biggest box-office smash of all time (unadjusted for inflation), it's understated and "immersive" use of 3D, and the obvious political and environmental issues it raises. It has also been criticized for recycling the "civilized man going native" story, which has been used in films such as Little Big Man, Dances with Wolves, and The Last Samurai.

Furthermore, people who should know better love to use Cameron's Best Director statement from the 1998 Oscars against him. I think that when Cameron proclaimed "I'm the king of the world!", he was not displaying unbridled ego, as much as he was searching for a way to express the joy he felt that Titanic (and his work) was so well received. As a result, Avatar has been dismissed by many critics who choose to view the film as a manifestation of unchecked hubris, rather than evaluating the film on it's own merits and debits.

Regardless of the film, an artistic evaluation based on such preconceptions is ridiculous and unworthy.

I'm assuming that most people who read this have seen Avatar, and thus, I will provide only the barest bones of a story recap.

Cameron's story takes place in the year 2154, and follows Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a paraplegic ex-marine who is offered the opportunity to take his brother's place in the Avatar program on a moon called Pandora, in the Alpha Centauri star system.

The Avatar program allows users to mentally inhabit a genetically engineered Pandoran humanoid called the Na'vi, which are used to study and communicate with the natives on Pandora, while facilitating the needs of the RDA corporation, which seeks to exploit Pandora's natural resources for use on Earth. RDA's interests are protected by privately hired soldiers, lead by Stephen Lang's Colonel Miles Quaritch.

Sully comes to learn the ways of the Na'vi, which eventually become incompatible with the needs of the RDA corporation, leading to war between the Na'vi and RDA's soldiers.

I see you...

In fairness, I'm not sure there's a better way Cameron could have expressed his themes than to use the "civilized man going native" story arc. Yes, at points it seems clumsy and derivative, but as opposed to expressing "white man's guilt," it is used as an exploration of the theme of the film itself. Avatar is not a story about a white man determining that the "savage" life is better than the "civilized" life. It is about how a man comes to embody a principle, and how he battles opposing forces that embody diametrically opposed principles.

Cameron is clearly incensed by the ways mankind has damaged the
earth, but what is most striking is his insistence that people are blind
to the danger. He express this in a variety of ways, the first being
Sully's awakening from a deep slumber.

Sully awakens, will mankind follow?

What is an Avatar? And West versus East - Specifically, Genesis 1:26-29 versus Hinduism.

Most computer users will answer that an Avatar is the visual identity of a computer user in cyberspace. While this application certainly applies to the film - Sully uses a genetically engineered Na'vi body to interact among the natives of Pandora, which he controls via a digital hookup in a lab - it is depicted in a manner that is both the inverse of it's usual application and highlights the definition of Avatar that Cameron is most interested in.

Sully uses an Avatar body to enter a real world, as opposed to cyberspace. Also, the consequences of his time in the Avatar body are equally real in both the Hell's Gate base, and when living among the Na'vi out in the jungles of Pandora. I think this could be seen as Cameron's warning that the use of an Avatar carries consequences both within the cyberworld as well as the real world, and a user must ensure that the use of an Avatar does not shield them from accepting responsibility for their actions.

This brings us to the true idea that Cameron is expressing with Avatar - a word that that originates from Hinduism, meaning the decent of a god to earth in a manifest shape (the Buddha is an avatar of Vishnu, for example) - the visible manifestation of an idea or abstract concept.

- Interestingly enough, this would be the Na'vi's view of Jake Sully; As an avatar of Eywa, the Pandoran "deity"-

Thus, Jake Sully, in his Avatar form, is the embodiment of the idea that a man who values the natural world over technology and material possession.

Conversely, the RDA Corporation, embodied by Giovanni Ribisi's Parker Selfridge (in full corporate weasel mode), represents the traditional Christian reading of Genesis 1:26-29: the idea that man will "be fruitful and become many and fill the earth and subdue it, and have in subjection the fish of the sea and flying creatures of the heavens and every living creature that is moving upon the earth." I think that Cameron's film is an explicit rejection of that phrase, or at least the traditional reading of it.

Jake Sully's journey as an Avatar.

In true archetype fashion, the story proper begins once Sully accepts the hero's challenge - in this case, taking on an Avatar body. For Sully, his willingness to become the chosen manifestation of an idea comes with immediate rewards: he is able once again to walk, run, and jump on Pandora. Other interesting quasi-religious/mythological notes - Sully, once he is able to walk and run, immediately breaks out of the human controlled base, allowing Pandora's toxic (to humans) atmosphere to enter the building: an opening of Pandora's box.

Opening Pandora's Box.

Moments later, Sully's love of Pandora takes hold the moment he bites into a Pandoran fruit - he is the Adam who begins to acquire knowledge once having tasted the Pandoran apple, as it were.

This is why I think Cameron is positing an outright rejection of the traditional reading of Genesis 1:26-29. Consider that the opening of Pandora's box is an ancient Greek myth, yet here it leads to wonder instead of disease. Also consider that Sully's biting the Pandoran apple is his initiation to forbidden knowledge and pleasures, launching him onto a decidedly non-Christian religious trajectory.

The forbidden fruit...

In fact, Sully's early attempts to subjugate the Pandora, using force, meet with disaster time and time again. Once out with Dr. Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) in the jungle, he runs afoul of gigantic land animals that are like rhinoceros, but with the head of a hammerhead shark. He is then chased by a Pandoran "panther", and forced to jump to safety over a waterfall. It must be noted that Sully's marine swagger, as well as his gun, are completely useless in subjugating the wild animals of Pandora. Later, in the night, he is chased by Pandoran pack "dogs", with only the basic technological implements as his defense - a spear and fire - and they provide no more protection and knowledge than did his human bravado and gun.

This is an explicit rejection of the traditional reading of Genesis
1:26-29, because his technological tools and "human bravado" should suffice in
taming the Pandoran wild. He is only saved by the Na'vi princess
Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), whose intimacy and knowledge of Pandora allow
him to escape and survive unscathed.

You are nothing without your tools.

Moments later, Sully is informed by Eywa, using Neytiri as translator, that he has been chosen. This is the scene where the seeds of the sacred tree - "very pure spirits" - coalesce around Sully's avatar body, causing him to glow white. Neytiri correctly interprets this as a sign from Eywa, but misses the meaning. She believes that Jake has been spared by Eywa, but she cannot understand yet that Sully has been chosen as the defender of Pandora.

The avatar of Eywa has been chosen.

Once chosen, Sully begins his initiation into life on Pandora, as one of the Na'vi. He learns to track his prey, and, in one of Cameron's most audacious conceits, learn to subjugate wild animals using a natural connection. All animals on Pandora, including the Na'vi, have a "biological cable" that allows the Na'vi to actually physically connect to whatever animal they are using. As opposed to taming a horse, the Na'vi are connected to the Pandoran "horse", or "birds" which allows the rider to mentally tell the creature where to go, fast or slow, so on and so forth, while the Na'vi are equally able to feel the animal's thoughts and feelings.

Furthermore, there are trees on Pandora that allow the Na'vi to connect with ancestors and other creatures that have physically died, using this same "biological cable." As every living thing on Pandora passes away, it's energy is reabsorbed into Pandora. This is Cameron's most interesting challenge to the traditional reading of Genesis 1:26-29. It is true that the Na'vi indeed subjugate the wild animals on Pandora for their uses, but it's done in a way that requires community and respect for nature, not condescension and hatred of it. Cameron is saying, explicitly, that we are intended not to be conquerors of nature, but stewards of it. If nature is used responsibly, with care and compassion, we can have a relationship that will sustain both, indefinitely.

Connecting with the natural world... literally.

As Sully learns these lessons, he falls in love with Neytiri, and is allowed to join the Na'vi tribe - even mating (for life) with Neytiri. Jake has learned, and accepted the Na'vi way of life, and thus, has now become obliged the protect it - even though he hasn't realized yet that he has been chosen for a greater purpose by Eywa. Once this occurs, he comes face to face with the enemy.

The opposing view: nature and natives as an enemy to be defeated and subjugated.

The RDA corporation is, quite transparently, a fill in for any number of corporations that willingly destroy nature to serve the god of profit. They are in a similar vein as the notorious Weyland-Yutani corporation in the Alien films (personified by Paul Reiser's Carter Burke in Aliens), as well as the Japanese industrialist Omura in The Last Samurai. They could just as easily stand in for British Petroleum, with the recent Gulf oil spill, Exxon with the Exxon Valdez disaster, as well as any corporation that has placed profit above all other considerations.

Is this Pandora, the Amazon, or Appalachia?

In Avatar's case, however, the best comparison is probably with the Indian Wars waged in America during the 19th century. Certainly, Avatar evokes the Trail of Tears, as well as Wounded Knee. There is also an explicit connection with the American war in Iraq, with corporations using mercenaries to protect their interests.

To take the Iraq connection further, RDA has taken to hiring a privately controlled military force to protect it's interests, much like companies in Iraq and Afghanistan have hired Blackwater to provide security and protection, and similar to how the CIA was used to overthrow a democratically elected government in El Salvador in the 1950s, all to protect the interests of United Fruit. We see a similar aesthetic portrayed again in The Last Samurai, where Omura hires Tom Cruise's Nathan Algren and Tony Goldwyn's Colonel Bagley to turn Japanese peasants into a modern military. An echo of this theme is also deployed in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid - Union Pacific magnate Edward Harriman hires lawmen to form a "superposse," expressly for the purpose of killing Butch and Sundance.

This is the ultimate depiction of the military-industrial complex - the point at which lawmen and/or the military are used to protect the interests of a private group, as opposed to defending the community or nation at large. Furthermore, the actions of the "military" force under corporate control does not answer to traditional nations of military or civil law. Freed from the constraints of the law, and acting on behalf of maximizing profit - the "military" force is allowed to do whatever is deemed necessary by the corporation to protect the profit margin.

In Avatar, this theme manifests itself with regularity. It begins in the scene where one of RDA's earth movers destroys a sacred tree, and Sully stops the machine by destroying it's remote cameras. His punishment, as decreed by the ex-military contractors and (at least implicitly tolerated) by RDA, is death. Sully, in his avatar body, is shot at for... stopping a machine in it's tracks. Not for attempting to kill humans, not for endangering humans, but for endangering the progress of an earth mover!

This is a penalty, to be paid with death.

In retaliation, Quaritch seizes the initiative, with consent from Selfridge, and launches his attack on Home Tree, the home of the tribe with which Jake has been initiated. Whatever doubts Selfridge harbors about destroying Home Tree, and the families that live there, are soothed by Quaritch, telling him "it will be humane." It, being the launching of gas pellets, incendiary rockets, and missiles. There's nothing humane in the destruction of a tribe's home, nothing humane about killing families, and nothing humane about casting the tribe into homelessness.

Quaritch's idea of "humane" extermination.

Upon seeing the results, Quaritch orders his troops home, with the same cavalier disregard that Blackwater's soldiers have shown in Iraq. "First drink's on me." And while a few workers, including Selfridge are momentarily appalled by the devastation, business quickly returns to normal. What Selfridge fails to see, however, is that he has lost control of his "military" force. Control has been ceded to the hyper-aggressive Quaritch, who will now resort to any and all means to protect RDA's investment. Quaritch is something of a stock military veteran - the man itching for a fight - but Lang invests him with so much energy, conviction, and contempt that he's completely believable.

Is this Quaritch, or former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld at a briefing?

This is the extreme edge of Genesis's subjugating man - man must destroy
everything he cannot control, and relishes the destruction of those
things he cannot control. It's also the mentality of the slave driver
and the dictator. For what it's worth, Quaritch is something of an
amalgamation of both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld - with their
constant invocation of upcoming threat and preemptive vigilance.

Further with the Genesis parallel, Sully - having already eaten the forbidden fruit and acquiring forbidden knowledge - is expelled from paradise both literally and symbolically. He is abandoned by his tribe, "outcast" literally, as well as cast out of Pandora's human society. When he re-enters his avatar near the site of Home Tree, he finds a desolate, post-apocalyptic world - he has been cast out of paradise.

Paradise Lost.

The irresistible force against the immovable object.

The final battle takes place as Quaritch determines that a preemptive attack against the Tree of Souls - the Na-vi's most sacred place on Pandora - will force the Na'vi to subjugate themselves to the demands of the RDA corporation. Never mind that the Na'vi have had one of their tribal homes destroyed, never mind that hundreds of Na'vi have been killed, and that the Na'vi have not yet launched a retaliatory strike of their own. No, the mere presence of gathering Na'vi tribes is enough incentive for Quaritch to demand the destruction of the most sacred place on all of Pandora.

Conversely, Sully, having been cast out of his Na'vi tribe for his failure to prevent the massacre at Home Tree, invokes the Na'vi legend of Toruk Macto to unite the tribes. In his role as avatar for Eywa, Sully has fully embraced the legacy and history of the Na'vi, and uses it to become their savior - he rides to the Tree of Souls on the back of a giant flying predator called "Last Shadow." Neytiri had told Sully the legend - Toruk Macto united the tribes in a time of great sorrow.

Toruk Macto, the Avatar of Eywa.

Futher, and most important to the outcome of the battle, Sully uses his "biological cable" to speak to Eywa and pray for help in the upcoming battle. In so doing, the avatar of God humbles himself before God, and admits that he needs "divine" help to do what is necessary. This is the last step in Sully's avatar progression, showing that he has become part of Pandora.

The Avatar humbles himself before Eywa.

The battle goes poorly for Sully and the other Na'vi against the technological supremacy of Quaritch until Eywa directly intervenes, sending thousands and thousands of creatures forth to destroy the human threat. More than anything else, this proves how completely Sully has embraced the idea behind valuing the natural world of Pandora - by humbling himself and providing an earnest warning, the entire connected natural world of Pandora rebels against the human invasion, as would our immune system mass against a virus in order to destroy it.

Eywa answers the Avatar's prayer.

This is also an inversion of the Na'vi subjugation of Pandora's livings things, however beneficent. What Eywa's mass attack against Quaritch's forces underlines is that while the Na'vi have learned how to subjugate Pandora's wild animals, Eywa is finally, ultimately in control, and anything that threatens to destroy the balance of nature will be swiftly destroyed.

Cameron, in his closing, inverts another theme to dramatic effect. First, as I mentioned above, the attack on Home Tree is in a vein similar to the massacre at Wounded Knee, or the Trail of Tears. However, what we see is the forced relocation of humans from Pandora, under the watchful eye of some human sympathizers and Na'vi tribespeople.

The Trail of Tears, back to Earth.

Closing thoughts...

Avatar is no masterpiece. I do have some issues with the film, but I personally don't think Avatar's deficiencies are crippling to the overall experience, and so I will only briefly discuss them.

Cameron has a problem similar to George Lucas, but less pronounced - a
dynamic visual storyteller who knows how to assemble a story, but
struggles with dialogue. I also wish that Cameron wasn't quite so
heavy-handed in the verbal deployment of his ideas - it's redundant and diminishes the power of his visuals.

James Horner must think he's the Stanley Kubrick (or even Quentin Tarantino) of composers - he recycles his music on a regular basis, but unlike Kubrick (or Tarantino), he doesn't redeploy them in anything approaching a consistent manner, nor are they used to illuminate, contrast, or reflect on his current or previous work. The music in Avatar, admittedly beautiful, contains more than a few bars of Troy, Titanic, Legends of the Fall, and Glory, but the reuse of the music makes no difference to the story.

All in all though, I cannot discount that Avatar is a tremendous emotional and visual experience. While the film has it's faults, Cameron has also deployed his themes in a consistent, logical manner. The acting is good to terrific, and the design work and special effects are at a level rarely, if ever seen before.

In closing, consider the Na'vi greeting: "I see you." As explained by
scientist Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore), "I see you" means I see who
and what you really are underneath, what you represent, what you stand
for. This is Cameron's way of saying that man sees only what's on the
surface, or only what they choose to see. It's a fitting final shot of
the film, as Sully's mind and spirit are joined with his Na-vi avatar,
his eyes snap open. He sees you.

"I see you."

The Vastness of Outer Space: Images from filmstag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d835023e3f69e20133f2be3e09970b2010-07-30T19:40:30-07:002010-07-30T19:42:52-07:00Myself, I'm choosing the theme of The Vastness of Outer Space. I've always found that in their rush to provide excitement, many filmmakers(and audiences, unfortunately) never pause to consider just how vast and unknowable space can be. I've selected images from films going back to the 1950s, up to films that are very recent in our history. Hopefully, the shots I chose can give you a moment of pause. Jeffrey Siniard

By Jeffrey Siniard 7/30/10.

I'm going to poach an idea I saw on a blog that I read rather frequently. John Kenneth Muir is a terrific genre critic, and he received a challenge that has been spreading from blog to blog, starting with Checking On My Sausages. The challenge here is to select a theme and provide images from films that express that theme.

I don't know if anyone else who sees this blogs about movies on their own time, but if so, I'd like to see what someone else has to contribute.

Myself, I'm choosing the theme of The Vastness of Outer Space. I've always found that in their rush to provide excitement, many filmmakers(and audiences, unfortunately) never pause to consider just how vast and unknowable space can be. I've selected images from films going back to the 1950s, up to films that are very recent in our history. Hopefully, the shots I chose can give you a moment of pause.

Alientag:typepad.com,2003:post-673788992009-05-29T14:04:38-07:002009-05-29T16:03:52-07:00Ridley Scott's first masterpiece, and one of the expertly crafted thrillers of all time. See the original soon if the "remake" stories are true. Disclaimer: Alien is this author's "desert island movie." By Jeffrey Siniard 5/29/09 Monday was the 30th...Jeffrey Siniard

Ridley Scott's first masterpiece, and one of the expertly crafted thrillers of all time. See the original soon if the "remake" stories are true.

Disclaimer:Alien is this author's "desert island movie."

By Jeffrey Siniard

5/29/09

Monday was the 30th Anniversary of Alien's release. Sure enough, 3 days later, stories broke all over the Internet about 20th Century Fox's plans for a "remake." This is among the worst ideas ever. Alien is, without question, the greatest science fiction thriller of all-time. In fact, James Cameron's sequel Aliens, John Carpenter's The Thing, Byron Haskin's War of the Worlds, and Fred Wilcox's Forbidden Planet are the only other films that belong in the discussion. Additionally, Alien is among the 10 best science fiction films ever made, and simultaneously among the 10 best horror films ever made.

I intend to make the case here for preserving a classic in your minds, before 20th Century Fox ruins everyone's memories.

First of all, a remake of Alien is pointless, mostly because it is already a remake of past science fiction thrillers, among them It! The Terror Beyond Space, Howard Hawks' The Thing, Them!, Invaders from Mars, War of the Worlds, and scores of other forgotten B movies of the 1950's. In this way, director Ridley Scott is entirely in keeping with what George Lucas did with Star Wars, and what Lucas and Steven Spielberg did with Raiders of the Lost Ark; recycle beloved classics, serials, and adventure stories into something totally familiar and yet totally new, thanks mostly to improved special effects and the loosening of societal mores that governed what you could put on screen.

Alien opens in the future, in a distant system at least 10 months away from Earth. Dark, sinister, and completely unknown, the opening sequence is the first of Scott's masterstrokes in this film. Perhaps only Stanley Kubrick's The Shining has succeeded as completely and as quickly as Alien in establishing a sense of desolate lonliness and isolation. Less than 2 minutes in, and you have the sensation of being completely cut off from all help.

There's no help here, at all.

Scott's second masterstroke is the introduction of the commercial towing vehicle Nostromo. As designed by Ron Cobb and realized by Production Designer Michael Seymour, the Nostromo is a gigantic hunk of slow-moving commercial spacecraft, towing a huge refinery. Inside the ship, you see cramped, leaking, industrial corridors stretching into the distance. An empty mess hall that appears as antiseptic as an operating table. A utilitarian bridge, full of industrial monitors and analog switches. Clearly, form follows function, and the Nostromo is established as a workhorse; the anti-starship Enterprise. Lastly, and most eerily, where's the crew?

Where is everyone?

The Nostromo's computers recieve a signal from the "Company" and monitors come to instant life. Then, winding through a corridor we enter a room with seven sleeping pods arranged like a blooming flower. The lights come on, the room pressurizes, and the pods open.

Scott deftly tweaks audience expectations and gives us a group of blue-collar workers, as opposed to explorers. Best of all, as soon as they wake up, the are complaining about things the way that any blue-collar grunt would. Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) hates the cornbread, Engineers Parker (Yaphet Kotto) and Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) gripe about not getting their bonuses, Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) whines about being cold, Exceutive Officer Kane (John Hurt) feels "dead" (a nasty in-joke, by the way). Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt) watches and interacts with a sense of amusement and boredom; he's heard all these gripes before, ad nauseum. And Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm) quietly minds his own business, until the ship's orders arrive.

Per "Company" bylaw, the Nostromo and their crew must divert from their return trip to Earth, and set down on an unexplored planet to "investigate a transmission of unknown origin."

Most know what happens next, though there is a hidden element. Alien is among the slowest-paced horror films (again, similar to The Shining). Some audience members get impatient waiting for something to happen, and they play right into Scott's hands. The tension is already palpable, and slowly, inexorably building. As Roger Ebert rightly points out in his review of Alien: "It's not the slashing we enjoy, it's the waiting for the slashing." The Nostromo sets down on the planet, damaging it's engines and other shipboard functions in the process. Dallas, Kane, and Lambert set out to locate the transmission's source, and encounter a derelict ship unlike anything anyone has ever seen.

This is where Scott's background in art design really pays off. On the advice of screenwriter Dan O'Bannon, Scott hired Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger to design all of the "alien" elements of the film. The derelict is the first moment when the audience realizes that Alien is really going to deliver on the promise hinted at in the title. The Derelict ship looks like a crash-landed wingbone, with no obvious engines, bridge, or anything remotely familiar. The entrances to the ship are vaginal in appearance. And inside, it appears to be a bio-mechanical fusion of bones and tubes. The explorers find a fossilized alien crewmember; Dallas notes it "looks like it grew out of the chair." Dallas also notes how the "bones are bent outward, like he exploded from inside." Scott was smart enough to give Giger free reign, and his imagery (again, beautifully realized by Seymour), a combination of bio-mechanical, organic, and brazenly sexual, is the stuff of nightmares.

"Looks like it grew out of the chair."

Soon after, Kane descends to the lower levels, and encounters a chamber full of "leathery objects, like eggs or something." One of the eggs opens while Kane peers inside, and a creature explodes onto Kane's facemask, burning a hole through it. Dallas and Lambert try to get Kane back aboard for medical help, only to have Ripley deny them entry, due to "quarantine procedures", quite accurately pointing out that "if we let it in, we could all die." In fact, Ripley defies Dallas' direct order to let them aboard. Ash, previously the stickler for rules and regulations, allows them entry. Later, Kane will appear to recover, and the Nostromo will set off for Earth. Everything seems okay, until...

The notorious "last supper," and probably one of the 2 or 3 greatest shockers in cinema history. What makes this scene work so well? Consider the set design. When Kane is laid out on the mess table, kicking and screaming, he's underneath an abnormally bright light, rather like the light used in a surgery room, or a maternity ward. The mess hall is painted in white and off-white colors, all the better for blood to stain it. The use of real sheep, pig, and cow parts to make the chest wound look real, as well as smell real to the cast. Never mind the deeply unsettling Freudian concept of a man giving birth to a creature shaped like a writhing phallus.

Kane's "child".

With this scene, Alien evolves into an absolutely relentless film; the pace that some in the audience were bemoaning earlier now has them covering their eyes at every camera move and loud noise. Scott doesn't assault the audience with buckets of gore after this scene, and he's smart enough to keep us from seeing the creature in it's entirety; enough is seen that it petrifies the imagination without ruining it. The creature, as designed by Giger, is a Freudian sexual nightmare come to life.

Too close for comfort.

Most importantly, and this is Scott's greatest achievement; the audience has bought completely into the concept. The characters, while not possessing much depth, are smartly realized and brilliantly performed by a great ensemble cast. The ship design is so functional, so real, that we never doubt the way it works. Everyone in the audience identifies with blue-collar grinders just trying to do their jobs and go home. Everyone identifies with working in a place they hate, that doesn't work as well as it should, but works just well enough to get by. Lastly, eveyone identifies with having co-workers you can barely tolerate or trust. For Dallas, Ripley, Lambert, Brett, Parker, and Ash, their lives now depend on trusting a ship that doesn't work perfectly to begin with (and is further damaged from their rough landing ealier), and trusting each other to work smart, hard, and fast.

Scott's command of the camera, aided by cinematographer Derek Vanlint, is absolutely masterful. As the movie progresses, the camera moves faster and faster around corners and through corridors. The camera moves beneath the actors, and tilts up, heightening the impression of the Nostromo squeezing in on the crew as their numbers decrease.

Is there a reason they're ducking, or is the ceiling getting closer?

In the exterior shots of the Nostromo, the ship moves slower and slower towards Earth, while the light from the stars gets dimmer and dimmer.

Just less than 10 months to Earth.

The terrifying sequence with Dallas hunting the alien in airshafts owes something to Spielberg's Jaws (where the barrels signify the shark, a motion tracker signifies the alien).

Not where I want to go alien hunting.

Beautiful touches abound, such as the way the opening of the sleeping pods echoes the opening of the alien egg (the flower motif is also used on the Nostromo's bulkheads). A string of spaghetti hangs from Kane's mouth, just like his innards will hang from his chest seconds later.

As stated earlier, this ensemble cast is sensational, but Scott's last masterstroke is with Ripley. When this film was released in 1979, everyone expected that Tom Skerritt's Dallas would be the last man standing. To see him die induced a state of panic in the audience, who watched Sigourney Weaver's (then an unknown stage actress) Ripley go from being the most attractive woman (i.e. alien bait) aboard, to the smartest, most resourceful survivor. Ripley's survival was as big a shock in it's time as the creature itself.

Maximizing all that has happened above, is the ingenious score composed by Jerry Goldsmith. Full of haunting melodies and bizarre sounds, the score puts the audience ill at ease from the opening all the way through the conclusion.

One last element is introduced in Alien to unsettle the audience, a theme that was pervasive in the mid-to-late 1970s: Corporate paranoia. This is the topper of dread that courses through the end of the film, and allows it to hold it's unsettling grip after the end credits roll. As much as the creature terrifies the crew and audience, even worse is the realization that this ship and crew have been sacrificed by the "Company" on the altar of profit. Ripley may have survived, but, to paraphrase Salon's Andrew O'Hehir: "the world she's returning to is the one that betrayed her in the first place."

How angry and depressed would you be if your employer did this to you?

Alien, at it's heart, is a classic B-monster/hanuted house movie. What sets Alien apart, is the manner in which it is executed. It is the quintessential example of how good acting, superb and original design, filmmaking craft, and a unique concept can take something routine and turn it into an unqualified classic.

Note: Ridley Scott is apparently considering a prequel to Alien, to be produced under the Scott Free production banner with his brother Tony. They have also selected a director for the film, a commercial filmmaker named Carl Rinsch. This would be better than a direct remake, and with Ridley Scott's involvement, an intriguing idea. But the speculation also centers on a small crew with one alien aboard a ship. Unless this is the derelict ship found by the Nostromo's crew, then this new film, even if set prior to Alien, will come across as a pale imitation.

Star Trektag:typepad.com,2003:post-667796832009-05-14T13:36:52-07:002009-05-14T15:40:55-07:00J.J. Abrams gives audiences a three-for-one deal; Star Trek works as a reboot, sequel, and prequel. He also gives audiences a blast. By Jeffrey Siniard 5/14/09 There are few things more nerve-wracking than being a long-time fan (Trekkie in my...Jeffrey Siniard

J.J. Abrams gives audiences a three-for-one deal; Star Trek works as a reboot, sequel, and prequel. He also gives audiences a blast.

By Jeffrey Siniard 5/14/09

There are few things more nerve-wracking than being a long-time fan (Trekkie in my case), seeing a cherished icon of youth get an extreme makeover. In the specific case of Star Trek, I spent most of the 30 minutes in the theater before the start of the picture, thinking the following:

"Please God, let this not suck like Nemesis, or Insurrection, or The Final Frontier."

"I hope the critics are right."

"Abrams is a TV guy, like Harve Bennett was a TV guy. This could work."

"Please God, let this not suck. Please, please, please."

My fears were alleviated in less than 5 minutes. Abrams delivers a sensationally entertaining picture. To begin with, he gives us not merely the best teaser in "Star Trek" history, but one of the great teasers I've seen in any movie. It sets a standard that the rest of the picture has to live up to, and thankfully, Star Trek mostly succeeds.

The film opens in deep space, with the Starfleet vessel USS Kelvin encountering an electrical storm. The storm opens into a black hole/gateway, through which a gigantic, techno-squid shaped vessel emerges. This is the Narada, a Romulan ship from over 100 years in the future. This sequence owes something to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, in that scale is used to establish a large ship; later, the ship is revealed as puny and insignificant. Also, the design of the Narada echoes the bow aperture and unsettling "alien" feel of V'ger.

This sequence is perfectly realized, as it provides high drama, sacrifice, honor, and duty, amid a flurry of incredible special effects. There are unforgettable moments, such as the horror of the Kelvin's crew when they realize their captain has been killed, seen in a shocking visual manner without a hint of gore, a Kelvin crewmember being blown into space as the sounds drops completely away, and the visual poetry of the Kelvin in space as it's torn to shreds. Most importantly, and very movingly, it also provides an almost Superman-esque entrance for James T. Kirk into the world of "Star Trek."

Star Trek tells the story, then, of how our beloved crew comes to serve on the USS Enterprise.

The movie picks up on Earth, 10-15 years later, when we see young Kirk driving a stolen Corvette and tear-assing across Iowa in the best bad-boy tradition. Then to Vulcan, we were are introduced to young Spock, and the bullies who chide him for his father Sarek (Ben Cross) marrying a human (Amanda, played by Winona Ryder). Young Spock's response to these bullies is classic Vulcan logic: "Your last 30 attempts to elicit an emotional response have not been successful."

Later we see Kirk (Chris Pine), now a late teen, washed up "genuis-level repeat offender" starting bar fights in Iowa after hitting on a Starfleet cadet - Uhura (Zoe Saldana), an expert in xenolinguistics who matches Kirk's come ons with sassy comebacks. In the aftermath, Kirk is shamed into joining Starfleet by Captain Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood). We then follow Kirk to Starfleet Academy, who picks up a friend in the curmudeonly, and recently divorced Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), and later proceeds to beat the previosuly unbeatable Kobayashi Maru test. This test was desgined by one of Starfleet's best young officers: Spock (Zachary Quinto).

As Kirk and Spock begin an acrimonious exchange at an Academy hearing for "academic violations", a distress call is received from Vulcan. Cadets are whisked off to their new ships. No points for guessing where Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Uhura are going, and no points for guessing what's causing the strange electrical storms over Vulcan.

No more plot. No more ruining surprises.

It is astonishing that Abrams and his screenwriters, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, have managed to find a way to make "Star Trek" viable again, much less make it the full throttle entertainment that it is, without sacrificing the characters or violating the primal appeal of the Original Series (To paraphrase Salon critic Andrew O'Hehir: an optimistic, Apollonian, sexy romp through space). In fact, Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman manage to do something that NONE of the previous movies were able to do, and that is to give each character a stand-alone moment with at least some personality and depth, while the one-liners and comic moments grow organically from the characters. Most importantly, the use of time-travel, while a beaten-down staple of "Star Trek," is essential to this story and the purpose of the film; it allows the filmmakers to find their stories without being beholden to "canon." Best of all, the in-jokes and trivial items are placed throughout the film in an unobtrusive manner.

The actors are uniformly marvelous. The trick here for the actors, playing such well-known (and frequently imitated) characters is to find the core of the character without lapsing into mannered parody. Karl Urban's McCoy is the best, and also the closest to straight impersonation. He acts as both Kirk's conscience and protector aboard the Enterprise; most of the best lines are his. Zoe Saldana has the plum role, as Uhura goes from an interstellar secretary to a fully realized person, who is tough-minded, highly skilled, and capable of showing immense tenderness, when not being hit on by a particular Iowa-raised skirt chaser. John Cho brings cool under duress and forceful intelligence as Sulu. His fight scene has an energy that none of the lightsaber duels in the Star Wars prequels can touch. Anton Yelchin's Chekov has the least to do, and is used mostly as comic relief; he comes off like a whiz kid that has so many ideas that he loses before he can use them - he's an emormously appealing presence. Last, but not least, is Simon Pegg's Scotty. Pegg is so ebullient, so charismatic in his brief moments that his appearances alone give the film a shot of unrestrained joy.

Chris Pine's Kirk comes on like a selfish, arrogant jerk, but one with a deep core of intelligence and desperation to prove his worth. Two of his scenes stand out: the previously mentioned bar fight and his work in the simulator. The bar scene is notable, not least because "bar scenes" are among the most cliched scenes for bad-boy movie characters. You sense Kirk's dimished self-worth and disappointment in himself cracking through his bravado. In the simulator, Pine comes dangerously close to camp; what makes the scene is how he conveys Kirk's utter contempt for the idea behind the Kobayashi Maru, and Kirk's desire to stick it to every one who has deemed him incapable of rising to the occasion. It is somehow perfect that Kirk devours an apple, simultaneously an "I'm eating your test up" rebuke to the simulaton and an in-joke to Kirk's recollection of the test in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Lastly, in this PC era, it to Pine's and Abrams' credit that they don't soft-pedal Kirk's sexual appetite.

Zachary Quinto has several marvelous scenes himself, his understated contempt for the Vulcan Science Academy (which has accepted him despite his handicap - a human mother) is a minor classic. His later scenes with Ben Cross are among the tenderest in the picture; when Sarek tells hims early that "as Vulcan Ambassador to Earth, it was logical to marry your mother", you sense Spock's confusion and conflict. This is paid off later when Sarek admits to Spock that he married Amanda because he loved her. Quinto conveys in a younger, rawer form what Leonard Nimoy always conveyed so elegantly - the divide between emotion and logic, and Quinto lets you see the resentment and confusion his Vulcan upbringing and Human emotion has created.

As far as techincal credits go, most everything here is sensational. The Enterprise looks as good as ever, it's as if she's been "rice rocketed" and as such she represents the perfect love for the new Kirk and Scotty. In fact, Scotty says "he'd like to get his hands on her nacelles." Production Designer Scott Chambliss walks the fine line between optimistic and antiseptic, and generally avoids the dystopic. The look of Vulcan is clever, a utopian civilized desert full of sharp angles in buidlings and terrain. Amusingly, Vasquez Rocks is placed in the background all over Vulcan as a wink to the Original Series. The design of the Narada is amazing, not since The Motion Picture has an alien craft in "Star Trek" sustained meance and dread on appearance alone. Michael Giacchino's soaring score takes some getting used to (mostly because we've heard Jerry Goldsmith's march for 30 years), but it has many moments of poetry and lyricism to go with the bombast.

However, as much fun as Star Trek is, and as good as the pacing, characters, actors, and special effects are, there are a few issues that keep it fun and very good, but not truly great.

When the pacing is sustained at warp speed, there is little time for repose and reflection. Consider a moment when the Romulan villian Nero (Eric Bana) perpetrates a mass genocide. There's no time for the Enterprise crew to take in the sheer horror of what's happening; only Spock's later log entry hints at the enormity of the event that has occured, and it's not nearly as devastating as it should be. Compare this with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; when the Klingon flagship is apparently torpedoed by the Enterprise-A and we go from hoping for peace to dreading war in the blink of an eye.

Nero is not fleshed out as well as he could have been; his motivation is (and Bana's performance) is strong enough to demand more. Kirk's being chased by weird aliens on a moon of Vulcan is rather silly and wastes time that could be spent better elsewhere. Cinematographer Dan Mindel has a lovely color palette and it's nice to finally see a future that is bright, shiny, and clean. However, the camera is needlessly jumpy and there is excessive use of lens flares (the classical compositions of the earlier films actually worked in their favor). As always, there is liberal use of astronomic phenomena such as supernovas and black holes with conservative use of astronomic truth or accuracy.

The biggest problem, however, is that there is little political, social, or thematic background to give the story added depth or resonance. The core of Star Trek is that its about the vacuum created by the loss (or withholding) of paternal love and guidance, and how we replace that love with the families we make for ourselves, but it's not developed well enough to make it emotionally resonant. If fully developed, this would have tied Star Trek even closer to the best moments in the Original Series, and many scenes in the first six films.

Still, despite these issues, this is the most entertaining "Star Trek" movie since The Wrath of Khan. It moves with an urgency, inclusiveness (which has always been a problem for "Star Trek") and eagerness to please that make it one of the most open-hearted summer films I've seen. The characters are well represented and beautifully performed. The special effects, sound, and music are first-rate. Trekkies will have more fun than a barrel full of monkeys spotting the in-jokes and references, while arguing about how the "history of the future" has been changed. If Abrams and Co. can find a way to settle the camera down a bit, and incorporate some more subtext into the sequel, "Star Trek" will indeed live long and prosper.

When Good Scenes Happen to Bad Moviestag:typepad.com,2003:post-519231182008-06-30T13:57:37-07:002008-06-30T13:57:37-07:00by Jeffrey Siniard 6/28/08 One of the most frustratings things I can think of is sitting through a bad movie that should be really good. The feeling is similar to going to a fancy restaurant and having a bad meal,...Jeffrey Siniard
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><P>by Jeffrey Siniard 6/28/08</P>
<P>One of the most frustratings things I can think of is sitting through a bad movie that should be really good.&nbsp; The feeling is similar to going to a fancy restaurant and having a bad meal, or having&nbsp;bad sex with someone who's really hot.&nbsp; We desperately want to be pleasured, enthralled, excited and satiated.&nbsp; In all three cases, the experience is particularly disappointing, if only because it holds so much promise.
</P>
<P>Bad as that is, I&nbsp;can think of one thing worse, the movie&nbsp;that is generally bad but contains a scene or sequence&nbsp;that is absolutely terrific.&nbsp; Cue the clenched fist, and cry "Aaaaaarrrrrrrrgggggggghhhh!"&nbsp; Like the tease of a wonderful smelling kitchen, or a lovely first kiss, the great scene in the bad movie has the effect of killing the rest of the film for you; you're always wondering why the rest wasn't as good.&nbsp; Yet, perversely, you're also convinced that you must have missed or underestimated the film, and will return to it over and over agin trying to find the magic that must be present elsewhere.</P>
<P>This rant is inspired by the Encore channels repeated showing of Ron Howard's <em>The Da Vinci Code</em>.</P>
<P>First of all, I wouldn't waste a full review on the picture itself.&nbsp; There's nothing much in it worth discussing, and whatever scandalous intrigue must have permeated the novel is sucked dry by Howard's self-serious direction (this has been a problem for Ron Howard ever since <em>Ransom</em>, but that's another rant), and the generally bland performances of Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, and company.&nbsp; In fact, only Ian McKellan as Holy Grail expert Sir Leigh Teabing seems to get the lunancy of the story and plays his part to hog heaven, making the surrounding film even worse.&nbsp; Two or three scenes have promise; the abriged history behind Da Vinci's The Last Supper, as told by Teabing with appropriate hatred of the Catholic Church, and a scene in Westminster Abbey where Hanks' Robert Langdon tries to imagine Sir Issac Newton's tomb and decipher "the code."</P>
<P>Everything here is predictable and unsurprising, especially the disinterest of Hanks and Tautou with the material and Howard with entertaining the audience.&nbsp; Then comes the ending...</P>
<P>If <em>The Da Vinci Code</em> were worthy of it's ending, it would be a&nbsp;crackerjack masterpiece.&nbsp; It feels as&nbsp;if once Howard and company got 2+ hours of plot out of the way, they could allow you to enjoy the final revelation of the Holy Grail's resting place.&nbsp; The ending is filled with excitement, foreboding, anticipation, and a sense of both wonder and reverence.&nbsp; It takes your breath away and&nbsp;leaves you wondering one thing: "Why the hell wasn't the rest of the movie this good?"</P>
<P>The scene opens with Tom Hanks (as symbologist Robert Langdon) enjoying a nice cleansing shave in his Paris hotel room.&nbsp; He nicks his chin and the blood forms a nearly straight line for the drain.&nbsp; Landon has an ephiphany of sorts, and so the scene begins.&nbsp; This sounds boring, I know, but it's really the first scene in the picture where Langdon is an active hero.&nbsp; We see him shaving, then thinking, as opposed to just running and explaning history (Hanks acts like a bored high school history teacher for most of the film) so that the audience can keep up.&nbsp; </P>
<P>Langdon&nbsp;dips into&nbsp;his own symbology&nbsp;book, remembering that the Rose Line turned into the Prime Meridian.&nbsp; From there, Langdon jaunts out into the enchanting Paris night, tracing the ancient Rose Line and recounting the clues to the Grail's location.&nbsp; This takes him to the Louvre, and finally to the realization that the Holy Grail&nbsp;may well lie&nbsp;beneath his feet.&nbsp; Hanks, in this scene,&nbsp;is engaged, and he invests the film with the surprise, amusement, wonder, and reverence appropriate for a partially lasped Catholic.&nbsp; In a very personal manner, we Langdon's faith being enlarged and renewed.&nbsp; Howard finally loosens the reins and appears to be having some fun.&nbsp;&nbsp;It's also the only moment in the film where Howard allows the audience to be participants, as opposed to tag alongs.</P>
<P>I can think of a few other moments in movies, where good scenes happen in bad movies...</P>
<ul>
<li>Geordi LaForge's sunrise and the&nbsp;Perfect Moment&nbsp;in <em>Star Trek: Insurrection</em>.
<li>The opening 20 minutes of <em>Snake Eyes</em>.
<li>The youngest Lost Boy finding Peter Pan in <em>Hook</em>.
<li>The flaming runaway train in <em>War of the Worlds</em>.
<li>Bagger Vance teaches about&nbsp;the "authentic swing" in <em>The Legend of Bagger Vance</em>.
<li>The garbled video log playback in <em>Event Horizon</em>.
<li>Young Alexander taming a horse in <em>Alexander</em>.
<li>John Rambo neutralizes the Hope County Sherriffs&nbsp;in <em>First Blood</em>.&nbsp;
<li>The lightsaber duel in <em>The Phantom Menace</em>.
<li>Superman fighting Clark Kent in <em>Superman III</em>.
<li>Newt and Hicks' cremation, and Ripley' suicide in <em>Alien 3</em>.
<li>The attack on Pearl Harbor in <em>Pearl Harbor</em>. </li>
</ul>
<P>I'm sure there are countless others that&nbsp;I haven't thought of yet, as well as many others I haven't seen.</P>
<P>I think that what frustrates optimistic film lovers&nbsp;the most is that these wonderful moments act as evidence that filmmakers know how to craft a good scene. Conversely, a cynic might say that even the worst filmmakers are apt to luck into a good scene on occasion.&nbsp; My questions is this: Why do I have to dig through so much junk to find&nbsp;so few jewels?</P></div>
Zodiactag:typepad.com,2003:post-380651232007-08-24T16:02:45-07:002007-08-24T16:02:45-07:00Director David Fincher's obsession leads to a thrilling true-crime picture By Jeffrey Siniard 8/24/07 From 1969 onward, Zodiac has maintained an unfortunate platform in the annals of American crime, that of the Infamous Celebrity. The picture Zodiac is about the...Jeffrey Siniard
<div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p><strong>Director David Fincher's obsession leads to a thrilling true-crime picture</strong></p>
<p>By Jeffrey Siniard 8/24/07</p>
<p>From 1969 onward, Zodiac has maintained an unfortunate platform in the annals of American crime, that of the Infamous Celebrity.&nbsp; The picture <em>Zodiac</em> is about the obsession to catch that serial killer, as well as an meditation on celebrity and the inability of intelligent people to communicate, even as information surrounds them. Thus far, it's also the best film in David Fincher's career.</p><p><em>Zodiac</em> is based on Robert Graysmith's books <em>Zodiac</em> and <em>Zodiac Unmasked</em>, adapted by screenwriter James Vanderbilt.&nbsp; The picture opens on July 4th, 1969 in Vallejo, CA.&nbsp; Two youngsters, a man and a woman are out for an evening drive, finally ending up at a lover's lane outside a local golf course.&nbsp; As they flirt tentatively, a car appears behind them, only to drive away.&nbsp; Moments later, the car reappears, a man gets out with a flashlight, blinding the kids in the car.&nbsp; The man shoots them both several times from point blank range, leaving the woman dead and the man severely injured.&nbsp; </p>
<p>A few days later, the first Zodiac letter arrives at the offices of the <em>San Francisco Chronicle.&nbsp; </em>It states that the paper must publish the letter or additional innocents will be killed.&nbsp; Reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.), an ascot wearing, chain smoking, hard drinking reporter is hooked.&nbsp; The Zodiac's cryptogram is passed around the boardroom, landing in front of cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal).&nbsp; The cartoonist who loves solving puzzles is hooked; little does he know he's tumbled into a puzzle that cannot be solved with certainty.</p>
<p><em>Zodiac</em> plays through three acts; the first details the crimes perpetrated by Zodiac, the second follows police - embodied primarily by SFPD Detective Dave Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) - as they attempt to identify suspects, and the third details Graysmith's obsession with finding the truth.&nbsp; The great accomplishment in Vanderbilt's screenplay and Fincher's direction is to keep the swirling abyss of various facts and persons easily distinguishable.&nbsp; Rarely does a film with so much information allow it's audience to follow along so easily.&nbsp; </p>
<p>The atmosphere is aided immeasurably by Harris Savides' HD digital photography; his images seem both crystal clear and somehow murky at once, a wonderul metaphor for seeing everything yet discerning nothing.&nbsp; The musical score by David Shire is equally effective and important.&nbsp; His solo horn is as unsettling a note as I've heard in a movie in ages; emphasizing the sense of loneliness in a world where a monster is lurking everywhere, but nowhere to be found.</p>
<p><em>Zodiac </em>opens with a vintage Paramount logo from the early 70s.&nbsp; This signals the determination Fincher has to re-creating the Bay Area of his youth, when Zodiac threatened to shoot children coming off school buses.&nbsp; This is the most critical element of <em>Zodiac</em>.&nbsp; Fincher shares his obsessive childhood fear of being murdered, as well as the inexplicable magnetism that only this kind of predator can exude.&nbsp; This is how it felt to live in the Bay Area at the time, as only a person who lived it can explain. </p>
<p>Fincher, who until now has seemed content to be an adolescent provocateur (albeit a phenomenally gifted one), is working as an artist for the first time. I love all of Fincher's films, and for all the abundant pictoral genius of <em>Se7en, The Game, Fight Club,</em> and<em> Panic Room</em>, he's never really given audiences much emotion or sympathy.&nbsp; His brand of challenging audiences was like that of many horror filmmakers; the &quot;let's see if you can take this&quot; challenge (consider Marla Singer's line in <em>Fight Club</em> - &quot;I haven't been fucked like that since I was in grade school!&quot;).&nbsp; Fincher's challenge to his audience with <em>Zodiac</em> is more honest - Remember Zodiac's victims.&nbsp; He humanizes them, making the audience witnesses as well as empathetic human beings.&nbsp; </p>
<p>One sequence in particular is terrifying; the attack on a couple enjoying a romantic idyll on the shores of Lake Berryessa.&nbsp; This scene is amazingly layered.&nbsp; You sense the amusement of the couple with the hooded clown hiding behind the tree, until they realize too late that he isn't a joke, the anticipation of the killer in his short breath and tense voice, the helplessness of the couple as they're tied up and worst of all, the horror of watching a loved one being stabbed to death before being stabbed to death yourself.&nbsp; All done with a minimum of gore and a maximum of empathy with the victims.</p>
<p>The performances get at something deeper, and more fascinating than obsession; the frustrations and guilt of celebrity, as well as the irony of not being able to communicate while being bombarded with information.&nbsp; Zodiac's murders were in different locations, inspiring a regional panic and frustrating police who weren't used to co-ordinating their efforts.&nbsp; His cryptograms were a taunt to both law-enforcement professionals desperately trying to identify him, as well as regular Americans - people who do things the right way, only to see a vicious murderer hog their limelight.&nbsp; The three lead characters are chasing the twin ghosts of Zodiac and celebrity, thinking desperately, wondering about the the lead they didn't follow, or the dots they can't quite connect.&nbsp; </p>
<p>Ruffalo plays at the sense of letting down a community which views him as a &quot;supercop,&quot; especially considering the way <em>Dirty Harry</em> echoes the Zodiac case, as well as Toschi's frustration with law enforcement's inability to close the case.&nbsp; Meanwhile, Donwey and Gyllenhaal brings different strengths to their roles.&nbsp; &nbsp;Downey imbues Avery with so much finesse that you realize in an instant that's he's all about having his name in the paper, and his inability to connect his name to the big break is the perpertual tease that crushes his spirit and sense of self worth.&nbsp; Gyllenhaal has a slightly geeky demeanor that plays perfectly into Graysmith's deeping obsession.&nbsp; You understand how he's oblivious enough to jeopardize himself and his family equally as well as you sense his need to close the case.&nbsp; </p>
<p>In the end, Graysmith is the last man standing, so to speak, but he is left with no absolutes, just an idea about who Zodiac is.&nbsp; His frustration and fear are equally visible in a late scene where he locks eyes with the potential killer.&nbsp; Fincher doesn't pander to the audience, making it clear that Graysmith's certainty is no substitute for proof.&nbsp; We are left with the unsettling feeling of a huge world where a killer roams free, waiting one day to shoot those kiddies as the come off the bus.</p>
<p>That's probably just how David Fincher felt growing up.</p></div>